


Hurt, feel

by Wrathofscribbles



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: The tables have turned, he's swapped sides, and Hank has to wonder... does he feel what it's like?





	Hurt, feel

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was not prepared for what happens in the kitchen of Stratford tower. Not prepared at all.

“You saved _my_ life.”

It takes a minute - okay, no, _more_ than a minute - to register that Connor isn’t quite _right_.  Who can blame him, when he’d been busy reading over the statements and chatting with the guards to see if they could remember anything else that might have been helpful, only for gunshots and chaos to ensue in the time it took him to blink and before he could even _flinch_ it was over?  The operator android slides to its knees in that slow, controlled fall deactivated androids do, as far removed from a human’s graceless sprawl as they could possibly be, _Thirium_  seeping through its uniform in blooms of bright blue and Hank realises at that exact moment that he hadn’t had time to duck and potentially _save his own life_  before the situation escalated and contained itself again.

Leaving him to gawp at the culprit with a slack jaw and eyes that can’t quite decide which part of Connor they want to stick on.  The cold, sharp cut of his face and the _fury_  burning in eyes that shouldn’t be glowering as they are, not for “a machine”.  The accelerated rise and fall of a chest that doesn’t need air but sucks it in through flared nostrils anyway.  The hand still tightly clenched on the gun, so much so that the pigmentation of his artificial skin has bled to chalky white, a grip so punishing he’s sure the weapon is doomed to crumble to dust before Connor comes back to his senses.  The - the _blood_  on his hand, on his _shirt_ , open and torn and sitting on him all wrong.  The unkempt tousle of hair usually pristine perfect.  The fluid at his mouth, smeared across his cheek like he’d attempted to wipe it from his lips with the back of his hand.

“What the fuck happened to you?!”  There, another oddity.  Usually Connor will at least turn in his direction or tilt his head as an acknowledgement when he’s spoken, but not this time.  No, those eyes are still fixed on the deviant, hand still on the gun, emotion on a face that doesn’t match the soulless voice he’d spoken with just minutes ago.  _Just a machine_  his ass... but it’s not his place to drop that bombshell on Connor, is it?  Not yet, anyway, not while they had _deviant_  investigations ongoing.

“The deviant and I had an altercation in the kitchen.”

“An alter- that’s a _verbal slapfest_ Connor, not something that winds up with one of you _dead_.”

“A fight, then.  If you will excuse me, Lieutenant, there is still the rooftop to examine.”  He relinquishes the gun to Chris, actually slaps it against his chest when he’s too slow in his dumbstruck state to pluck it from his grip, swivels around on his perfectly positioned heel, and walks off in that gait of his that isn’t quite a march and isn’t quite a stride, either, but something caught between that means _business_.  And given the dark look that’d been burning in his eyes, Hank feels a _smidgen_  sorry for any poor bastard caught in Connor’s way and made to scuttle aside lest they be stomped over.

Except the kid doesn’t stomp.  He _never_  stomps.  Never let emotions get the better of him - and he _had_ them, damn it, Hank wasn’t so blind or oblivious as to miss the signs - and never acted rashly.  Until now.  Until a scrap in the kitchen with a deviant, its eyes open and distant and _empty_  when Hank regards it for a long moment.  Two shots directly over the placement of a human heart, two more tucked further down, neat and tidy in the center of where a human ribcage would end - the resting place of the Thirium regulator thing for standard androids.  Poor fucker never stood a _chance._

_Not so poor, Hank.  He was about to unleash absolute carnage._

His brain catches up with him then, actually computes that _Connor is injured_ , and he hollers after his partner, takes off after him when the asshole doesn’t respond.

* * *

He’s subtle about the injuries, Hank will give him that.  To an untrained eye there’s nothing different about him except for the rumpled appearance, but to _Hank?_ He’s seen Connor drop down into a crouch like he could belt out a hundred squats in five minutes, easy, and stay balanced on his hunkers for twenty, all to stick his fingers in something to sample it with all the fancy lab equipment crammed into his mouth and camouflaged as a tongue.  He’s watched him move around with eerie grace, eyes bouncing around so fast just being a spectator to it made him dizzy.  He’s had many an internal laugh over his similarity to _Sumo_  with the head tilts going on whenever he folds his arms over his chest and surveys a crime scene at a distance, LED spinning round and round and flickering between blue and yellow as he tests out theories and simulations he’ll lay out for Hank in _stunning_  detail once he comes to a conclusion.

He’s had time to observe the best android CyberLife has to offer, he’s learned a couple of things about him and it’s _obvious_  to him that Connor is injured and downplaying it, or attempting to ignore it outright.  He _eases_  down into that crouch, like someone with joint problems, he braces his hands on his thighs and takes a steadying breath before getting back up again.  Any time he goes to tap his mouth in the android equivalent of thought his fingers jump away from it like he’d just shocked himself, and when he leans over the banister, eyes scanning the other buildings and rooftops for clues Hank has no hope in hell of spotting without binoculars, _at the very least,_  the uninjured hand drifts up to the ruins of his shirt.  _Specifically_ to the blue blood _(Thirium, Hank, it’s called Thirium)_ tacky on his chest, brows drawing into a frown and lips pinching into a thin line like the pressure _pains_  him.

Do androids feel pain?  Or is it just some programming firing up in their brains to register the damaged parts?

“On a scale of one to ten, how urgent is a trip to the nearest CyberLife store to get you checked out?”

“I assure you, Lieutenant, I am fully functional.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell that to the blood still leaking out of your mouth.”  Connor starts as though caught by surprise, discoloured fingers (are they _bruised?_ ) lifting once again to his mouth and the damage Hank can’t pin down.

“Ah, nothing to concern yourself over.  A minor leak, quite common after the removal of one’s Thirium pump regulator.  It isn’t fatal.”

“The removal of - what the fucking _fuck,_  Connor?!  Are you really saying you could have died in that kitchen-”

“Another Connor would have tak-”

“- and you didn’t think to mention that until just now?  Who’s to say you won’t explode the second I turn my back again?!”  _I never should have left him alone, goddamn it._

“I have already run a full diagnostics, Lieutenant.  Rest assured my hardware is stable.”  Rest assured.  _Rest assured_.  He might as well be commenting on the snow for all he seems bothered by a _close encounter with death._

“Goddamn it, Connor.  We’re supposed to be partners!  Yell or cause a fuss when you need backup for Chirst’s sake!”  He wants to shake him for his stupidity.  He wants to rip off his shirt just to take a closer look for himself and assure himself there isn’t a gaping hole in him somewhere.

... He wants to hug the infuriating bastard.

* * *

 _I did_.

But Connor doesn’t say that.  It’s natural for tips to pull them apart at a crime scene, covering more area per minute than they would if they remained in each other’s orbit.  He knows Hank wouldn’t have ignored him if he’d _heard_  his call.

_I did, but you weren’t there._

Not Hank’s fault.  Not his burden or guilt to bear.

 **Memory sequence: ... #4794  
** **Subject: ... operational deviant**  
 **Location: ... Stratford Tower, floor 79**  
 **Objective: ... suspected terror attack, obtain evidence of suspects**  
 **Command run: ... delete memory sequence #4794 section C7 “call for help”**  
 **Confirm: ... delete memory sequence #4794 section C7 “call for help” ... Y/N**  
 **...**  
 **...**  
 **...**  
 **Y**


End file.
